An Alternative Direction for PvE

[Kidori 143]

The claim system as it existed wasn’t far off from being great, there just needed to be more robust mechanics and some bug fixes integrated to resolve the biggest issues. I love the idea the game has of players being able to band together to create massive empires that span the entire atlas and would very much like to see the game continue down that path.

The biggest problems that have been plaguing the game has revolved around large companies gaining more land than they could ever occupy, the people that own these massive swathes of land do not have sufficient incentive to allow others to build on their property and even when they are willing players have balked at the idea of renting land from someone else. These are the main issues I’d like to address with a series of changes to the current core systems.

 

• Changes to beds, spawning and fast travel

Beds become personally owned, and are only usable by the person that placed it. Limit the number of beds per character to three. People would have just enough beds to place one in their home, one on their ship, and one more to play around with and use as they see fit. This will make it more difficult for large companies to maintain huge amounts of land by simply fast traveling to refresh timers, without making it completely impossible to create an empire.

Companies are less likely to take and maintain land they don’t intend to actually use as the trouble of sailing around to visit them all will simply not be worthwhile for many. It will encourage owning land only where you intend to occupy. It will also put an end to the issue of unlimited fast travel points, which will encourage more travel and exploration.

 

• New system: Sub-claims

• Players receive a new feat, the Claim Marker

Claim markers are able to designate a specific portion of land that can then be turned into a sub-claim and rented out to other players. When you use it you take out a tool that looks like a wooden stake. Left click will place a stake, and let’s say you place 8 stakes in an octagonal pattern. Right click on stakes in succession and upon right clicking again on the first stake it creates a polygon that then becomes the borders of a sub-claim. All points of a sub-claim must fall within the radius of the same claim flag, and there is a limit of one sub-claim per flag.

This system will allow land owners to set a specific area of their land they want building limited to, and would allow for greater control for the owner of the claim as well as better protection for the potential renter. Renting land would include transferring ownership of the sub-claim to the receiving party. The renter would have unlimited building rights in the marked off area, and it would have the same inactivity timer as a normal claim flag.

While the renter remains active, the owner of the claim cannot evict or take over the structures inside the sub-claim. The owner also cannot demolish the claim flag. If the renter becomes inactive and the sub-claim’s timer runs out, the owner of the claim can elect to remove the sub-claim and everything in it.

 

• Claim upkeep changes

The refresh timer on claim flags would diminish with the number of flags a company owns as it does now, but the timer could be extended by an amount determined by the number of occupied sub-claims the company has. This will give a very real benefit to incentivize large companies to rent out any land they own that they’re not actively using. Claim flags whose timer runs out will simply vanish.

This will free up land immediately without needing to wait up to 4 hours to claim land no one is using, and also put an end to the current exploit of overlapping another company’s claim using an adjacent contesting flag. Contesting would become a thing of the past, which is a good thing because it’s currently a tedious and boring part of the game that turns away new players looking for their first plot of land to claim.

If the owner of a claim that’s currently being rented to an active tenant becomes inactive and the timer runs out, ownership of the claim the sub-claim exists in changes hands to the renter. In the event of an overlapping claim, the area within the sub-claim’s border is given priority in deciding ownership. The possibility of that land transferring ownership to the renter if the owner does become inactive will make being a renter more appealing.

 

• New Feature: Private messaging and player mail

• New Feature: Sub-claim search

One of the other issues people have with renting is simply finding someone willing to rent land to them. Including the ability to search within your current grid for unoccupied sub-claims will help players to locate land that’s available. The search will show the location and also give the name of the player that placed the sub-claim. The potential renter can then send a private message to the owner to try and work something out. If the owner is not online, they can send a mail message that will be delivered to the owner when they log in.

 

• Revamped: Tax system

Taxes should not be universal. There needs to be much more control over who and what gets taxed. For instance I could set the global tax rate to 30% on all resources, set taxes for allies to 20% on just wood, thatch and fiber, set the tax rate on my company members to 5%, then set the tax rate for the company that I just rented land out to to just 10% on everything.

If I can set the taxes lower for residents of my property as opposed to the random people that come by to gather resources, then there’s a real benefit to becoming one of my tenants. I may even be a land owner that ends up renting another plot of land from someone on a different island that I like to farm on, just to get the benefit of lower taxes. I would then inadvertently find myself to be a part of that community.

 

Further tweaks and additions to the systems will inevitably be required, but I firmly believe that implementing these changes together in place of the currently proposed PvE changes will result in a far better experience for players, both in the short and long-term. It will also move the game much closer in line with the advertised core concept. Empires will rise and fall, communities will develop, and solo players and small companies will find it far easier to get their own little slice of paradise.

Also, if you read this whole wall of text, you deserve a cookie.

[Hattrix 43]

I get 1/2 a cookie.

I liked some of your ideas .. beds / fast travel  and   Claim upkeep

[Anastasia 0]

I love it >.< If only it was like that I get 1 cookie!

[GimmieGimmie 8]

Pretty much my wish list right here.

[MeatSammich 214]

I still think the claim upkeep changes and sub-claim flags are great ideas.

I floated a similar idea a couple weeks ago, as part of essentially a 'forced renting' where people would be forced to have a percentage of their claims set as buildable by anyone, with the percentage going higher the more claims you had (ie: 50% over 25 claims rentable, 60% over 50 claims, 70% over 100 claims, 80% over 500 claims and 90% over 1000 claims). Once the first person built on that land, the sub-claim setup you have would kick in.

As far as the tax rate, the easier thing, and to stop the complaining, i would have made a flat, invisible tax, that didn't cost the harvester anything. 15% of the amount of mats you harvest from someone elses claim would be generated extra, and sent to the land owners bank. Everyone gets something, and no one is penalized.

[Kidori 143]

10 hours ago, MeatSammich said:

As far as the tax rate, the easier thing, and to stop the complaining, i would have made a flat, invisible tax, that didn't cost the harvester anything. 15% of the amount of mats you harvest from someone elses claim would be generated extra, and sent to the land owners bank. Everyone gets something, and no one is penalized.

I had seen this suggestion before and was torn between what I had proposed and this implementation. This one would be far simpler and easier to implement, but if they went with either one I would be happy, and I think a lot of other people would be as well.